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141-570: Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo is a platform video game developed by Frontier Developments and published by BAM! Entertainment for the GameCube , PlayStation 2 , Xbox and Microsoft Windows . It is the first console game to feature Aardman Animations ' characters Wallace & Gromit and also features the voice of Wallace, Peter Sallis reprising his role. As Gromit, the player must use Wallace's bizarre inventions - including

282-608: A true 3D platformer is a French computer game called Alpha Waves , created by Christophe de Dinechin and published by Infogrames in 1990 for the Atari ST , Amiga , and IBM PC compatibles . Bug! , released in 1995 for the Saturn , has a more conservative approach. It allows players to move in all directions, but it does not allow movement along more than one axis at once; the player can move orthogonally but not diagonally. Its characters were pre-rendered sprites, much like

423-452: A 1980 arcade release by Universal , is sometimes credited as the first platformer. Another precursor to the genre from 1980 was Nichibutsu 's Crazy Climber , in which the player character scales vertically scrolling skyscrapers. The unreleased 1979 Intellivision game Hard Hat has a similar concept. Donkey Kong , an arcade video game created by Nintendo and released in July 1981,

564-401: A 2D plane are called 2.5D , as they are a blend of 2D and 3D. The first platformers to simulate a 3D perspective and moving camera emerged in the early-mid-1980s. An early example of this was Konami 's Antarctic Adventure , where the player controls a penguin in a forward-scrolling third-person perspective while having to jump over pits and obstacles. Originally released in 1983 for

705-418: A 3D Sonic game, Sonic Adventure , for its Dreamcast console. It used a hub structure like Super Mario 64 , but its levels were more linear, fast-paced, and action-oriented. Donkey Kong (arcade game) Donkey Kong is a 1981 arcade video game developed and published by Nintendo . As Mario ,(known at the time as "Jumpman") the player runs and jumps on platforms and climbs ladders to ascend

846-461: A Diamond-O-Matic to create diamonds, reminding Wallace of the D-Day poster. Archie accidentally gets sent into the machine, and Gromit must enter the machine and protect Archie from various threats such as fire and ice. They are able to rescue Archie and go to confront Feathers. In the final boss fight of the game, Wallace is imprisoned in a cell and Gromit must battle Feathers in a giant robot suit. Upon

987-407: A Japanese-English dictionary for something that would mean "stubborn gorilla", or that "Donkey" was meant to convey "silly" or "stubborn"; "Kong" was common Japanese slang for "gorilla". A rival claim is that he worked with Nintendo's export manager to come up with the title, and that "Donkey" was meant to represent "stupid and goofy". In 2001, Miyamoto stated that he thought the name would convey

1128-462: A balance between open-ended and guided exploration. Another platform-adventure released that year, Pony Canyon 's Super Pitfall , was critically panned for its vagueness and weak game design. That same year Jaleco released Esper Boukentai , a sequel to Psychic 5 that scrolled in all directions and allowed the player character to make huge multistory jumps to navigate the vertically oriented levels. Telenet Japan also released its own take on

1269-481: A bouncing car that jumps on various platforms such as buildings, clouds, and hills. Jump Bug offered a glimpse of what was to come, with uneven, suspended platforms, levels that scroll horizontally (and in one section, vertically), and differently themed sections, such as a city, the interior of a large pyramid, and underwater. Irem's 1982 arcade game Moon Patrol combines jumping over obstacles and shooting attackers. A month later, Taito released Jungle King ,

1410-525: A brief burst of episodic platformers where the first was freely distributed and parts 2 and 3 were available for purchase. The abundance of platformers for 16-bit consoles continued late into the generation, with successful games such as Vectorman (1995), Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest (1995), and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island (1995), but the release of new hardware caused players' attention to move away from 2D genres. The Saturn , PlayStation , and Nintendo 64 nevertheless featured

1551-586: A budget of $ 267,000 (equivalent to $ 895,000 in 2023) according to Miyamoto. Ikegami Tsushinki was subcontracted for some of the development, with no role in the game's creation or concept, but to provide "mechanical programming assistance to fix the software created by Nintendo". Nintendo instructed Ikegami to produce a program according to its instructions and put it onto read-only memory (ROM) chips on printed circuit boards (PC boards). This later led to mutual lawsuits in 1983, as Ikegami asserted ownership over Donkey Kong which Nintendo denied as Ikegami

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1692-558: A comic strip license played a major part, Donkey Kong marked the first time that the storyline for a video game preceded the game's programming rather than simply being appended as an afterthought. An unrelated Popeye game was released by Nintendo for the Game & Watch the following month, as well as a game called Popeye for arcades in 1982. Yamauchi wanted primarily to target the North American market, so he mandated that

1833-422: A complete plot. The game opens with the gorilla climbing a pair of ladders to the top of a construction site, accompanied by a variation on the musical theme from Dragnet . He drops Pauline and stomps his feet, warping the steel beams. He moves to his final perch and sneers. A melody plays, and the level starts. This brief animation sets the scene and adds background to the gameplay, a first for video games. At

1974-613: A complete story. It also notably had multiple, distinct levels that progressed the storyline. Donkey Kong was also one of the first Japanese games brought to Western regions that introduced a surreal concept using cute artwork, a representation of typical Japanese fantasy but unusual to Western audiences. For that reason, Donkey Kong and similar games that followed were briefly called "novelty games" by Western gaming press. Donkey Kong and other such games helped to acclimate Western audiences to Japanese approaches to game design, narrative, and abstraction that would become key elements in

2115-437: A connection between the two Kongs. On October 4, 1984, the court upheld the previous verdict. Nintendo and its licensees filed counterclaims against Universal. On May 20, 1985, Judge Sweet awarded Nintendo $ 1.8 million for legal fees, lost revenues, and other expenses, but he denied Nintendo's claim of damages from those licensees who had paid royalties to both Nintendo and Universal. Both parties appealed this judgment, but

2256-521: A considerable fee for all rights to Donkey Kong , but Nintendo declined after three days of internal discussion. Rivals Coleco and Atari, Inc. approached Nintendo in Japan and the United States respectively. In the end, Yamauchi granted Coleco exclusive console and tabletop rights to Donkey Kong because he believed that "it [was] the hungriest company". In addition, Arakawa believed that as

2397-474: A construction site and rescue Pauline from a giant gorilla, Donkey Kong . It is the first game in the Donkey Kong series and Mario's first appearance in a video game. Donkey Kong was created to salvage unsold arcade cabinets following the failure of Nintendo's Radar Scope (1980), and was designed for Nintendo of America 's audience. Hiroshi Yamauchi , Nintendo's president at the time, assigned

2538-460: A construction site made of crooked girders and ladders while jumping over or hammering barrels and oil drums tossed by Donkey Kong. Stage two involves climbing a five-story structure of conveyor belts , each of which transport cement pans. The third stage involves the player riding elevators while avoiding bouncing springs. The final stage requires Mario to remove eight rivets from the platforms supporting Donkey Kong; this causes Donkey Kong to fall and

2679-486: A debugger to trace through the game's code. The game was ported by Nintendo Research & Development 2 to Nintendo's Family Computer (Famicom) console and released in Japan on July 15, 1983, as one of the system's three launch games . Masayuki Uemura , the Famicom's lead architect, designed the console specifically to faithfully recreate Donkey Kong . It is an early Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) game in

2820-450: A forward-scrolling effect similar to Sega's 1985 third-person rail shooter Space Harrier . 3-D WorldRunner was an early forward-scrolling pseudo-3D third-person platform-action game where players were free to move in any forward-scrolling direction and could leap over obstacles and chasms. It was notable for being one of the first stereoscopic 3-D games . Square released its sequel, JJ , later that year. The earliest example of

2961-609: A high quality of animation. The 1988 shareware game The Adventures of Captain Comic was one of the first attempts at a Nintendo-style platformer for IBM PC compatibles . It inspired Commander Keen , released by id Software in 1990, which became the first MS-DOS platformer with smooth scrolling graphics. Keen's success resulted in numerous console-styled platformers for MS-DOS compatible operating systems, including Duke Nukem , Duke Nukem II , Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure , and Dark Ages all by Apogee Software . These fueled

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3102-686: A lawyer and the president of MCA and Universal City Studios , learned of the game's success and suspected it might be a trademark infringement of Universal's own King Kong . Nintendo was given 48 hours to turn over all profits from the game and dispose of all Donkey Kong inventory. On April 27, he met with Arnold Greenberg of Coleco and threatened to sue over Coleco's home version of Donkey Kong . Coleco agreed on May 3 to pay royalties to Universal of 3% of their Donkey Kong ' s net sale price, worth about $ 4.6 million. Meanwhile, Sheinberg revoked Tiger's license to make its King Kong game, but O. R. Rissman refused to acknowledge Universal's claim to

3243-479: A love triangle between a gorilla, a plumber with a large hammer, and a girlfriend, mirroring the rivalry between Bluto and Popeye for Olive Oyl . Bluto became an ape, which Miyamoto said was "nothing too evil or repulsive". He would be the pet of the main character, "a funny, hang-loose kind of guy". Miyamoto has named " Beauty and the Beast " and the 1933 film King Kong as influences. Although its origin as

3384-402: A more established company in the U.S., Coleco could better handle marketing. In return, Nintendo received an undisclosed lump sum plus $ 1.40 per game cartridge sold and $ 1 per tabletop unit. On December 24, 1981, Howard Lincoln drafted the contract. He included language that Coleco would be held liable for anything on the game cartridge, an unusual clause for a licensing agreement. Arakawa signed

3525-439: A mouth, a cap obviates the animation of hair, and colored overalls distinguish his arm movements. The artwork of the cabinets and promotional materials make these cartoon-like character designs even more explicit. Pauline, for example, is depicted as disheveled like the 1930s King Kong ' s Fay Wray in a torn dress and stiletto heels . Like Pac-Man (1980), Donkey Kong has cutscenes , but innovates by advancing

3666-493: A novel genre that did not match the style of games that came before it. The genre was initially referred to as "Donkey Kong-type" or "Kong-style" games, before the genre eventually came to be known as platform games. The game was also a milestone in terms of video game storytelling and cutscenes. While there were earlier games that either told a story or used cutscenes, Donkey Kong combined both concepts together to introduce its own new concept: using cutscenes to visually advance

3807-631: A number of successful 2D platformers. The 2D Rayman was a big success on 32-bit consoles. Mega Man 8 and Mega Man X4 helped revitalize interest in Capcom 's Mega Man character . Castlevania: Symphony of the Night revitalized its series and established a new foundation for later Castlevania games. Oddworld and Heart of Darkness kept the subgenre born from Prince of Persia alive. The difficulties of adapting platformer gameplay to three dimensions led some developers to compromise by pairing

3948-472: A plot, and integrating multiple unique stages into the gameplay. Donkey Kong pioneered the platform game genre before the term existed, is the first to feature jumping, and is the first video game with a damsel in distress narrative. It had a limited release in Japan on July 9, 1981, before receiving a wide release some weeks later. Although Nintendo of America's staff was initially apprehensive, Donkey Kong succeeded commercially and critically, becoming

4089-562: A previous case that King Kong ' s scenario and characters were in the public domain (by way of the Novelisation of the 1933 film). Judge Sweet ruled in Nintendo's favor, awarding them Universal's profits from Tiger's game ($ 56,689.41), damages and attorney's fees. Universal appealed, trying to prove consumer confusion by presenting the results of a telephone survey and examples from print media where people had allegedly assumed

4230-441: A quarter and a third of all console games. By 2006, the genre had experienced a decline in sales, representing a 2% market share as compared to 15% in 1998. In spite of this, platformers are still being commercially released every year, including some which have sold millions of copies. A platformer requires the player to maneuver their character across platforms to reach a goal while confronting enemies and avoiding obstacles along

4371-545: A score of 1,141,800. Lakeman's record was then broken by John McCurdy on January 11, 2021, with a score of 1,272,700. Lakeman reclaimed the world record only five months later on June 8, scoring 100 more points than McCurdy. Making the new record 1,272,800. In 2018, Mitchell was stripped of his records by Twin Galaxies and banned from submitting new scores after Twin Galaxies concluded that Mitchell had illicitly used emulators to achieve his scores. Twin Galaxies prohibits

Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo - Misplaced Pages Continue

4512-425: A settlement the following year; the terms of it were never disclosed. In 1996 Next Generation listed the arcade, Atari 7800, and cancelled Coleco Adam versions as number 50 on their "Top 100 Games of All Time", commenting that even ignoring its massive historical significance, Donkey Kong stands as a great game due to its demanding challenges and graphics which manage to elegantly delineate an entire scenario on

4653-470: A shift in design. Later 3D platformers like Banjo-Kazooie , Spyro the Dragon , and Donkey Kong 64 borrowed its format, and the "collect-a-thon" genre began to form. In order to make this free-roaming model work, developers had to program dynamic, intelligent cameras. A free camera made it harder for players to judge the height and distance of platforms, making jumping puzzles more difficult. Some of

4794-406: A side-scrolling action game some platform elements: jumping between vines, jumping or running beneath bouncing boulders. It was quickly re-released as Jungle Hunt because of similarities to Tarzan . The 1982 Apple II game Track Attack includes a scrolling platform level where the character runs and leaps along the top of a moving train. The character is little more than a stick figure , but

4935-403: A single screen. In February 2006, Nintendo Power rated it the 148th best game made on a Nintendo system. In 2017, The Strong National Museum of Play inducted Donkey Kong to its World Video Game Hall of Fame . Today, Donkey Kong is the fifth most popular arcade game among collectors. Donkey Kong spawned a number of other titles with a mix of running, jumping and vertical traversal,

5076-441: A steadily decreasing bonus counter. The player starts with three lives with a bonus life awarded at 7,000 points. A life is lost when Mario touches Donkey Kong or any enemy object, falls too far, or lets the bonus counter reach zero. The game ends when all lives are lost. Each of the four single-screen stages represents 25 meters of the structure Donkey Kong has climbed: 25, 50, 75, and 100 meters. Stage one involves Mario scaling

5217-458: A success. In his 1982 book Video Invaders , Steve Bloom described Donkey Kong as "another bizarre cartoon game, courtesy of Japan" and said it was one of the "most exciting variations" on Pac-Man ' s maze theme along with Sega 's Frogger due to how players need to "scale from the bottom of the screen to the top" which make them "more like obstacle courses than mazes" since "you always know where you're going — up". In January 1983,

5358-725: A teenager with a rebellious personality to appeal to gamers who saw the previous generation of consoles as being for kids. The character's speed showed off the hardware capabilities of the Genesis, which had a CPU clock speed approximately double that of the Super NES. Sonic 's perceived rebellious attitude became a model for game mascots. Other companies attempted to duplicate Sega's success with their own brightly colored anthropomorphisms with attitude. These often were characterized by impatience, sarcasm, and frequent quips. A second generation of platformers for computers appeared alongside

5499-488: A theme that's become all too familiar since the success of Donkey Kong ". That year Sega released a Donkey Kong clone called Congo Bongo in arcades. Although using isometric perspective , the structure and gameplay are similar. Crazy Kong was officially licensed from Nintendo and manufactured by Falcon for some non-US markets. Nevertheless, Crazy Kong machines found their way into some American arcades, often installed in cabinets marked as Congorilla . Nintendo

5640-489: A total of approximately 20 kilobytes of content. Yukio Kaneoka composed a soundtrack to serve as background music for the levels and story events. The circuit board of Radar Scope was restructured for Donkey Kong . The Radar Scope hardware, originally inspired by the Namco Galaxian hardware, was designed for a large number of enemies moving around at high speeds, which Donkey Kong does not require, so

5781-451: A trapdoor into a flooded room where they are nearly crushed before Gromit unlocks the door. The duo are briefly separated again, with Gromit needing to navigate around lava, fire and enemies before they are reunited and find imprisoned baby gorillas who Gromit is soon able to free. In appreciation, the gorillas open up the lift, allowing them further access. Eventually, after freeing all three gorillas, Wallace and Gromit find their way back to

Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo - Misplaced Pages Continue

5922-744: Is an update of the NES version that reinstates the cement factory stage and includes some animations absent from the original NES version, and has only ever been released on the Virtual Console . It was preinstalled on 25th Anniversary PAL region red Wii systems, which were first released in Europe on October 29, 2010. In Japan, a download code for the game for the 3DS Virtual Console was sent to users who purchased New Super Mario Bros. 2 or Brain Age: Concentration Training from

6063-488: Is central to the genre, though there are exceptions such as Nintendo 's Popeye and Data East 's BurgerTime , both from 1982. In some games, such as Donkey Kong , the trajectory of a jump is fixed, while in others it can be altered mid-air. Falling may cause damage or death. Many platformers contain environmental obstacles which kill the player's character upon contact, such as lava pits or bottomless chasms. The player may be able to collect items and power-ups and give

6204-407: Is considered one of the most important games from the golden age of arcade video games and one of the greatest and most popular arcade games of all time . It has been frequently referenced in pop culture and subsequent video games and has an active high score competition . Following 1980's Space Panic , Donkey Kong is one of the earliest examples of the platform game genre, even prior to

6345-474: Is in a vector game called Major Havoc , which comprises a number of mini-games, including a simple platformer. One of the first raster -based platformers to scroll fluidly in all directions in this manner is 1985's Legend of Kage . In 1985, Enix released the action-adventure platformer Brain Breaker . The following year saw the release of Nintendo's Metroid , which was critically acclaimed for

6486-464: Is now running the zoo and has kidnapped Archie. Back at home, Wallace and Gromit design a giant wooden penguin (a parody of the Trojan Horse ) which gets them inside the zoo. Entering the jungle house, they find that Feathers has captured baby elephants to force their parents to work for him. Soon, Wallace finds an entrance to a mine where Gromit must battle a mole machine in the first boss fight of

6627-465: Is the endless runner , where the main character is always moving forward and the player must dodge or jump to avoid falling or hitting obstacles. Various names were used in the years following the release of the first established game in the genre, Donkey Kong (1981). Shigeru Miyamoto originally called it a "running/jumping/climbing game" while developing it. Miyamoto commonly used the term "athletic game" to refer to Donkey Kong and later games in

6768-618: The Arcade Classics Series , released in June 1986 in North America and October 15 in Europe. Omitted are the cement factory stage and most of the cutscenes, because early ROM cartridges do not have enough memory. It includes a new song composed by Yukio Kaneoka for the title screen. Both Donkey Kong and its sequel, Donkey Kong Jr. , are included in the 1988 NES compilation Donkey Kong Classics . A complete remake of

6909-626: The Atari 2600 , with 256 horizontally connected screens, became one of the best-selling games on the system and was a breakthrough for the genre. Smurf: Rescue in Gargamel's Castle was released on the ColecoVision that same year, adding uneven terrain and scrolling pans between static screens. Manic Miner (1983) and its sequel Jet Set Willy (1984) continued this style of multi-screen levels on home computers . Wanted: Monty Mole won

7050-650: The Coleco Gemini , in 1983. Atari obtained the license for home computer versions of Donkey Kong and released it for the Atari 8-bit computers . When Coleco unveiled the Adam Computer , running a port of Donkey Kong at the 1983 Consumer Electronics Show in Chicago, Illinois, Atari protested that it was in violation of the licensing agreement. Yamauchi demanded that Arnold Greenberg , Coleco's president, withdraw his Adam port. Greenberg complied, and

7191-683: The MSX computer, it was subsequently ported to various platforms the following year, including an arcade video game version, NES , and ColecoVision . 1986 saw the release of the sequel to forward-scrolling platformer Antarctic Adventure called Penguin Adventure , which was designed by Hideo Kojima . It included more action game elements, a greater variety of levels, RPG elements such as upgrading equipment, and multiple endings . In early 1987, Square released 3-D WorldRunner , designed by Hironobu Sakaguchi and Nasir Gebelli . Using

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7332-530: The Master System with Alex Kidd in Miracle World . It has horizontal and vertical scrolling levels, the ability to punch enemies and obstacles, and shops for the player to buy power-ups and vehicles. Another Sega series that began that same year is Wonder Boy . The original Wonder Boy in 1986 was inspired more by Pac-Land than Super Mario Bros. , with skateboarding segments that gave

7473-631: The Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985, became the archetype for the genre. It was bundled with Nintendo systems in North America, Japan, and Europe, and sold over 40 million copies, according to the 1999 Guinness Book of World Records . Its success as a pack-in led many companies to see platformers as vital to their success, and contributed greatly to popularizing the genre during the third and fourth generations of video game consoles. Sega attempted to emulate this success with their Alex Kidd series, which started in 1986 on

7614-549: The Nintendo eShop from July 28 to September 2, 2012. In North America, a download code for Original Edition for the 3DS Virtual Console was sent to users who purchased one of five select 3DS games on the Nintendo eShop and registered it on Club Nintendo from October 1, 2012, to January 6, 2013. In Europe and Australia, it was released for purchase on the Nintendo 3DS eShop in September 2014. The original arcade version

7755-531: The Picture Processing Unit (PPU) chip for the NES. The NES version was re-released as an unlockable game in the first Animal Crossing , both through its Nintendo Space World 2000 demo as well as the final game. It was also published on Virtual Console for the Wii , Wii U , and Nintendo 3DS . The Wii U version is also the last game that was released to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of

7896-518: The Porridge Gun , Turnip Launcher , Springy Boots , and Gyrocopter - to battle Feathers McGraw's robotic minions and rescue the baby animals in typical platform game style. Wallace and Gromit have adopted Archie, a baby polar bear at the local zoo. When they go to the zoo to celebrate his birthday, they find the zoo padlocked and supposedly under new management. They soon discover that Feathers McGraw (the villain from The Wrong Trousers )

8037-495: The kill screen , due to a programming error that kills Mario after a few seconds, effectively ending the game. The 2007 documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters portrays Steve Wiebe 's attempts to break the Donkey Kong world record, then considered to have been held by Billy Mitchell . In the early 2010s, Hank Chien set a record of 1,138,600 points. This was broken four years later by Robbie Lakeman with

8178-454: The maze and shooter games common at the time, and Judy and Lincoln expressed reservations over the strange title. Still, Arakawa adamantly believed that it would be a hit. American staff began translating the storyline for the cabinet art and naming the characters. They chose "Pauline" for the Lady, after Polly James, wife of Nintendo's warehouse manager Don James . Arakawa suggested that

8319-537: The virtual camera , it had to be constrained to stop it from clipping through the environment. In 1994, a small developer called Exact released a game for the X68000 computer called Geograph Seal , which was a 3D first-person shooter game with platforming. Players piloted a frog-like mech that could jump and then double-jump or triple-jump high into the air as the camera panned down to help players line up their landings. In addition to shooting, jumping on enemies

8460-599: The 1980 arcade video game Space Panic , which has ladders but not jumping. Donkey Kong , released in 1981, established a template for what were initially called "climbing games". Donkey Kong inspired many clones and games with similar elements, such as Miner 2049er (1982) and Kangaroo (1982), while the Sega arcade game Congo Bongo (1983) adds a third dimension via isometric graphics . Another popular game of that period, Pitfall! (1982), allows moving left and right through series of non-scrolling screens, expanding

8601-622: The 1982 Arcade Awards gave it the award for the best single-player video game and the Certificate of Merit as runner-up for Coin-Op Game of the Year . In September 1982, Arcade Express reviewed the ColecoVision port and scored it 9 out of 10. Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games in 1983 stated that "Coleco did a fabulous job" with Donkey Kong , the best of the console's first five games and "the most faithful adaptation of

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8742-468: The Enchanted Castle , which was only modestly successful. That same year, Capcom released Strider in arcades, which scrolled in multiple directions and allowed the player to summon artificial intelligence partners, such as a droid, tiger, and hawk, to help fight enemies. Another Sega release in 1989 was Shadow Dancer , which is a game that also included an AI partner: a dog who followed

8883-678: The Famicom version were sold; the Famicom Mini version for the Game Boy Advance later had a further 160,000 units sold, for a total of 1 million units sold in Japan. The Atari 8-bit computer version sold 25,502 units in 1986 and 1990. This totals 15,206,025 units sold worldwide for the Game & Watch, ColecoVision, Atari and Famicom ports. As of 2015 , all versions of the original Donkey Kong are estimated to have grossed $ 4.4 billion in revenue. In April 1982, Sid Sheinberg ,

9024-653: The Gyro-Copter, where they see Feathers activating some machinery. Wallace and Gromit gum up the machinery and Feathers uses an escape pod to flee, which they follow. After eventually finding Feathers and Archie, Feathers cuts the lights, allowing him to escape to the Polar exhibit. Eventually, Wallace soups up a pedlo boat with a turnip launcher. After obtaining Feathers' remote control, Wallace accidentally activates Feathers' submarine, forcing Gromit to destroy it and icebergs. Wallace and Gromit then find Feathers has created

9165-480: The Hedgehog into 3D. Their project, titled Sonic Xtreme , was to have featured a radically different approach for the series, with an exaggerated fisheye camera and multidirectional gameplay reminiscent of Bug! . Due in part to conflicts with Sega Enterprises in Japan and a rushed schedule, the game never made it to market. In the 1990s, platforming games started to shift from pseudo-3D to "true 3D," which gave

9306-611: The Japanese version of the NES, the Famicom. The original arcade version of the game appears in the Nintendo 64 game Donkey Kong 64 , and it must be beaten to finish the game. Nintendo released the NES version on the e-Reader and for the Game Boy Advance Classic NES Series in 2002 and 2004, respectively. In 2004, Namco released an arcade cabinet which contains Donkey Kong , Donkey Kong Jr. , and Mario Bros. Donkey Kong: Original Edition

9447-469: The United Kingdom press. Examples include referring to the " Super Mario mould" (such as Kato-chan & Ken-chan ) as platform games, and calling Strider a "platform and ladders" game. The genre originated in the early 1980s. Levels in early platform games were confined to a single screen, viewed in profile, and based on climbing between platforms rather than jumping. Space Panic ,

9588-404: The Year". Another term used in the late 1980s to 1990s was "character action games", in reference to games such as Super Mario Bros. , Sonic the Hedgehog , and Bubsy . It was also applied more generally to side-scrolling video games , including run and gun video games such as Gunstar Heroes . Platform game became a common term for the genre by 1989, popularized by its usage in

9729-529: The acrobatics evoke the movement that games such as Prince of Persia would feature. B.C.'s Quest For Tires (1983) put a recognizable character from American comic strips into side-scrolling, jumping gameplay similar to Moon Patrol . The same year, Snokie for the Commodore 64 and Atari 8-bit computers added uneven terrain to a scrolling platformer. Based on the Saturday morning cartoon rather than

9870-438: The arcade successor to Donkey Kong , Ikegami sued Nintendo for the unauthorized duplication of the Donkey Kong program code. Nintendo managed to settle the dispute out of court after the two companies came to an agreement. At the time of the suit, computer programs were not considered copyrightable material. The Tokyo High Court gave a verdict in 1989 that acknowledged the originality of program code. Ikegami and Nintendo reached

10011-415: The basis for the non-linear mission structure found in most open-world, multi-mission, sidequest -heavy games. Another Capcom platformer that year was Bionic Commando , which popularized a grappling hook mechanic that has since appeared in dozens of games, including Earthworm Jim and Tomb Raider . Scrolling platformers went portable in the late 1980s with games such as Super Mario Land , and

10152-628: The bundled ColecoVision version sold 2 million units, while the Atari 2600 version sold 4 million units in 1982 for $ 100 million , making it one of the best-selling Atari 2600 games . It was also one of the earliest cartridges available for video game rental at certain stores in 1982. Atari's 1987 re-release for the Atari 2600 sold a further 180,523 units for $ 1,258,282 by 1990. Coleco's Mini-Arcade tabletop versions of Donkey Kong , along with Pac-Man , Galaxian , and Frogger , had combined sales of three million units. In Japan, 840,000 units of

10293-609: The console as the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in North America, along with Super Mario World , while Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog for the Sega Genesis . Sonic showcased a new style of design made possible by a new generation of hardware: large stages that scrolled in all directions, curved hills, loops, and a physics system allowing players to rush through its levels with well-placed jumps and rolls. Sega characterized Sonic as

10434-421: The criteria of a platformer, and was billed as an action adventure . It used true 3D characters and set pieces, but its environments were rendered using a rigid engine similar to the one used by Wolfenstein 3D , in that it could only render square, flat corridors, rather than suspended platforms that could be jumped between. Sega had tasked their American studio, Sega Technical Institute , with bringing Sonic

10575-420: The decade that followed with the release of the NES. Computer and Video Games called Donkey Kong "the most momentous" release of 1981, as it "introduced three important names" to the global video game industry: Nintendo, Shigeru Miyamoto, and Mario. These three figures went on to play a significant role in video game history. Donkey Kong paved the way for the NES, known as the Famicom in Japan. Following

10716-566: The development team removed unnecessary functions and reduced the scale of the circuit board. The gameplay and graphics were reworked for updated ROM chips, and the existing CPU , sound hardware, and monitor were left intact. The character set, scoreboard, upper HUD display, and font are almost identical to Radar Scope , with palette differences. The Donkey Kong hardware has the memory capacity for displaying 128 foreground sprites at 16x16 pixels each and 256 background tiles at 8x8 pixels each. Mario and all moving objects use single sprites,

10857-511: The document the next day, and, on February 1, 1982, Yamauchi persuaded the Coleco representative in Japan to sign without review by the company's lawyers. Coleco bundled the game with the ColecoVision console, which went on sale in August 1982, though the individual cartridge was also available in stores. Coleco offered Atari 2600 and Intellivision versions as well. Coleco's Atari 2600 port

10998-419: The earlier Clockwork Knight . The game plays very similarly to 2D platformers, but lets players walk up walls and on ceilings. In 1995, Delphine Software released a 3D sequel to their 2D platformer Flashback . Entitled Fade to Black , it was the first attempt to bring a popular 2D platformer series into 3D. While it retained the puzzle-oriented level design style and step-based control, it did not meet

11139-567: The end of the Wrong Trousers. Photos shown during the credits show Archie celebrating his birthday with his mother at Wallace and Gromit's house. The game was announced in May 2002 for a 2003 release window on GameCube, PlayStation 2, Xbox and PC. Wallace & Gromit in Project Zoo received "mixed or average reviews" on all platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic . Platform game The genre started with

11280-410: The eponymous Donkey Kong character is the game's de facto villain. The hero is a carpenter originally unnamed in the Japanese arcade release, later named Jumpman and then Mario. Donkey Kong kidnaps Mario's girlfriend, originally known as Lady and later renamed Pauline. The player must take the role of Mario and rescue her. This is the first occurrence of the damsel in distress scenario that provided

11421-521: The first award for Best Platform game in 1984 from Crash magazine. Later that same year, Epyx released Impossible Mission , and Parker Brothers released Montezuma's Revenge , which further expanded on the exploration aspect. The first platformer to use scrolling graphics came years before the genre became popular. Jump Bug is a platform-shooter developed by Alpha Denshi under contract for Hoei/Coreland and released to arcades in 1981, only five months after Donkey Kong . Players control

11562-485: The foreground and background, and the camera panning and curving around corners. Meanwhile, Pandemonium and Klonoa brought the 2.5D style to the PlayStation . In a break from the past, the Nintendo 64 had the fewest side scrolling platformers with only four; Yoshi's Story , Kirby 64: The Crystal Shards , Goemon's Great Adventure , and Mischief Makers —and most met with a tepid response from critics at

11703-614: The four to six months that the average game lasted. It remained Nintendo's top seller into mid-1983, with steady sales in Japan. A total of 65,000 arcade units were sold in Japan, and 67,000 arcade units in the United States, for a total of 132,000 arcade units sold in Japan and the United States. Nintendo's Game & Watch handheld version of Donkey Kong released in 1982 sold 8 million units. Coleco had sold 6 million Donkey Kong cartridges for home consoles, grossing more than $ 153,000,000 (equivalent to $ 483,000,000 in 2023) and earning Nintendo more than $ 5 million in royalties;

11844-470: The game a greater sense of speed than other platformers at the time, while its sequel, Wonder Boy in Monster Land added action-adventure and role-playing elements. Wonder Boy in turn inspired games such as Adventure Island , Dynastic Hero , Popful Mail , and Shantae . One of the first platformers to scroll in all four directions freely and follow the on-screen character's movement

11985-552: The game and avoided royalties altogether. Universal City Studios unsuccessfully sued Nintendo, alleging that Donkey Kong violated its trademark of the King Kong franchise . Donkey Kong 's success positioned Nintendo for market dominance for the 1980s and 1990s. The game debuts Mario, who became Nintendo's mascot and one of the world's most recognizable characters. It was mass marketed in multitudes of products, including breakfast cereal, toys, and television cartoons. Donkey Kong

12126-456: The game be given an English title, as with many previous Nintendo games. Miyamoto decided to name the game for the ape, who he said was the strongest character. The story of how Miyamoto came up with the name "Donkey Kong" varies. A false urban myth says that the name was originally meant to be "Monkey Kong", but was misspelled or misinterpreted due to a blurred fax or bad telephone connection. Another, more credible story claims Miyamoto looked in

12267-551: The game in its second year of release in America, totaling $ 280 million in US cabinet sales by 1982 (equivalent to $ 940,000,000 in 2023). In Japan, the annual Game Machine charts listed Donkey Kong as the highest-grossing arcade game of 1981, and then the sixth highest-grossing arcade game of 1982, with Game Machine later listing the game in its October 1, 1983 issue as the twentieth most successful table arcade cabinet of

12408-504: The game is near perfect and that anyone can be caught in Donkey Kong "fever". Donkey Kong was popular worldwide, garnering a positive reaction from consumers, and was a significant commercial success for Nintendo, pulling them out of financial troubles. After the game's initial 2,000 arcade cabinets sold out, more orders were made. Arakawa began manufacturing the electronic components in Redmond because waiting for shipments from Japan

12549-559: The game was not published. The Atari 8-bit conversion of Donkey Kong contains one of the longest-undiscovered Easter eggs in a video game. Programmer Landon Dyer's initials appear if the player dies under certain conditions and returns to the title screen. This remained undiscovered for 26 years until Dyer revealed it on his blog, stating that "there's an Easter egg, but it's totally not worth it, and I don't remember how to bring it up anyway". The steps required to trigger it were later discovered by Don Hodges, who used an emulator and

12690-443: The game. After the mole machine is destroyed, Feathers escapes underground. Wallace sees a poster nearby denoting a countdown to D-Day , which he finds odd. Travelling underground, Wallace and Gromit are briefly separated, forcing Gromit to navigate mining machinery and mine cart tracks. It also turns out Feathers has imprisoned baby beavers to force their parents to work. Wallace and Gromit corner Feathers, but he drops them through

12831-498: The gameplay from its precursor but traded the frog-like mech for a cartoony rabbit mech called Robbit. The title was successful enough to get two sequels and is remembered for being the first 3D platformer on a console. Rob Fahey of Eurogamer said Jumping Flash was perhaps "one of the most important ancestors of every 3D platformer in the following decade." It holds the record of "First platform videogame in true 3D" according to Guinness World Records . Another early 3D platformer

12972-457: The genre continued to maintain its popularity, with many games released for the handheld Game Boy and Game Gear systems. By the time the Genesis and TurboGrafx-16 launched, platformers were the most popular genre in console gaming. There was a particular emphasis on having a flagship platform title exclusive to a system, featuring a mascot character. In 1989, Sega released Alex Kidd in

13113-413: The genre, such as Super Mario Bros. (1985). Donkey Kong spawned other games with a mix of running, jumping, and vertical traversal, a novel genre that did not match the style of games that came before it, leaving journalists and writers to offer their own terms. Computer and Video Games magazine, among others, referred to the genre as "Donkey Kong-type" or "Kong-style" games. "Climbing games"

13254-419: The hero to be reunited with Pauline. These four stages combine to form one level. After each level, the stages repeat with increased difficulty. For example, Donkey Kong begins to hurl barrels faster and sometimes diagonally, and fireballs speed up. The victory music alternates between levels 1 and 2. The fourth level consists of five stages with the final stage at 125 meters. Level 130 is colloquially known as

13395-460: The highest score without using the hammer. The current world record in this category was set by Jeff Wolfe on July 8, 2008, with a score of 735,100. Some other categories include most points for different levels, and fewest points. Donkey Kong is considered to be the earliest video game with a storyline that visually unfolds on screen. Set on a construction site in New York City ,

13536-555: The highest-grossing game of 1981 and 1982. It was ported to the Game & Watch , selling eight million units, while Nintendo licensed the game to Coleco , a developer of arcade conversions for home consoles , selling six million cartridges. It was later ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), designed to replicate its technological capabilities; both the game and NES were integral in spreading Japanese video games to Western audiences. Donkey Kong 's various ports sold more than 15 million units worldwide. Other companies cloned

13677-454: The levels were open and had objectives. Completing objectives earned the player stars, and stars were used to unlock more levels. This approach allowed for more efficient use of large 3D areas and rewarded the player for exploration, but it meant less jumping and more action-adventure . Even so, a handful of boss levels offered more traditional platforming. Until then there was no settled way to make 3D platformers, but Super Mario 64 inspired

13818-420: The limited memory of Atari 2600 cartridges forced him to omit two of the original game's four levels. Coleco's sales subsequently doubled to $ 500 million and its earnings quadrupled to $ 40 million. Coleco also released stand-alone Mini-Arcade tabletop versions of Donkey Kong , along with Pac-Man , Galaxian , and Frogger in 1982. Coleco also bundled a copy of Donkey Kong with its Atari VCS clone,

13959-451: The main character new abilities for overcoming adversities. Most games of this genre consist of multiple levels of increasing difficulty that may be interleaved by boss encounters, where the character has to defeat a particularly dangerous enemy to progress. Simple logical puzzles to resolve and skill trials to overcome are other common elements in the genre. A modern variant of the platform game, especially significant on mobile platforms,

14100-690: The managers of two bars in Seattle, Washington, to set up Donkey Kong machines. The managers initially showed reluctance, but when they saw sales of $ 30 a day—or 120 plays—for a solid week, they requested more units. In their Redmond headquarters, a skeleton crew composed of Arakawa, his wife Yoko, James, Judy, Phillips, and Stone gutted 2,000 surplus Radar Scope machines and applied the Donkey Kong conversion kits imported from Japan, consisting of motherboards , power supplies, and marquee graphics. The game officially went on sale in July 1981. Makers of video game consoles were interested. Taito offered

14241-489: The maze game, Namco's 1984 Pac-Land is a bidirectional, horizontally-scrolling, arcade video game with walking, running, jumping, springboards, power-ups , and a series of unique levels. Pac-Man creator Toru Iwatani described the game as "the pioneer of action games with horizontally running background." According to Iwatani, Shigeru Miyamoto described Pac-Land as an influence on the development of Super Mario Bros. . Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. , released for

14382-560: The month. In the United States, Donkey Kong topped the Play Meter arcade charts in October 1981, setting a weekly earnings record, and it was later listed by RePlay as the highest-grossing arcade game of 1982. It was also among the thirteen highest-grossing arcade games of 1983 in the United States. According to Electronic Games in June 1983, the home versions contributed to the arcade version's extended popularity, compared to

14523-405: The more linear 3D platformers like Tork: Prehistoric Punk and Wario World used scripted cameras that limited player control. Games with more open environments like Super Mario 64 and Banjo Kazooie used intelligent cameras that followed the player's movements. Still, when the view was obstructed or not facing what the player needed to see, these intelligent cameras needed to be adjusted by

14664-435: The name of "Jumpman", a name originally chosen for its similarity to the popular brands Walkman and Pac-Man , be changed to "Mario" after Mario Segale , the landlord of the original office space of Nintendo of America. These character names were used in promotional materials, although Mario was called Jumpman in the operations manual and instructions. Donkey Kong was ready for release. Stone and Judy convinced

14805-482: The new wave of consoles. In the latter half of the 1980s and early 1990s, the Amiga was a strong gaming platform with its custom video hardware and sound hardware . The Atari ST was solidly supported as well. Games like Shadow of the Beast and Turrican showed that computer platformers could rival their console contemporaries. Prince of Persia , originally a late release for the 8-bit Apple II in 1989, featured

14946-672: The original arcade game on the Game Boy , titled Donkey Kong (referred to as Donkey Kong '94 during development) contains levels from both the original Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. arcades. It starts with the same gameplay and four locations as the arcade game and then progresses to 97 additional puzzle-based levels. It is the first game to have built-in enhancement for the Super Game Boy system. Upon release in arcades, Computer and Video Games compared it favorably with King Kong and predicted that it would likely become

15087-616: The original video game I have seen". The magazine's Danny Goodman stated that of Coleco's three console versions, the one for the ColecoVision was the best, followed by Atari and Intellivision. Computer and Video Games reviewed the ColecoVision port in its September 1984 issue and scored it 4 out of 4 in all four categories of Action, Graphics, Addiction and Theme. Ed Driscoll reviewed the Atari VCS version of Donkey Kong in The Space Gamer No. 59. Edwards commented that

15228-408: The platform-action game, Valis , which contained anime -style cut scenes . In 1987, Capcom 's Mega Man introduced non-linear level progression where the player is able to choose the order in which they complete levels. This was a stark contrast to both linear games like Super Mario Bros. and open-world games like Metroid . GamesRadar credits the "level select" feature of Mega Man as

15369-416: The play area. Nintendo 's flagship Super Mario Bros. (1985) was a defining game for the nascent genre, with horizontally scrolling levels and the player controlling a named character—Mario, which became a mascot of the company. The term platform game gained traction in the late 1980s, as did the alternate form platformer . During their peak of popularity, platformers were estimated to comprise between

15510-506: The player around and aid in battle. In 1990, Hudson Soft released Bonk's Adventure , with a protagonist positioned as NEC 's mascot. The following year, Takeru's Cocoron , a late platformer for the Famicom allowed players to build a character from a toy box filled with spare parts. In 1990, the Super Famicom was released in Japan, along with the eagerly anticipated Super Mario World . The following year, Nintendo released

15651-405: The player more control over the character and the camera. To render a 3D environment from any angle the user chose, the graphics hardware had to be sufficiently powerful, and the art and rendering model of the game had to be viewable from every angle. The improvement in graphics technology allowed publishers to make such games but introduced several new issues. For example, if the player could control

15792-993: The player. In the 1990s, RPGs , first-person shooters , and more complex action-adventure games captured significant market share. Even so, the platformer thrived. Tomb Raider became one of the bestselling series on the PlayStation , along with Insomniac Games ' Spyro and Naughty Dog 's Crash Bandicoot , one of the few 3D games to stick with linear levels. Moreover, many of the Nintendo 64 's bestsellers were first- and second-party platformers like Super Mario 64 , Banjo-Kazooie , and Donkey Kong 64 . On Windows and Mac , Pangea Software 's Bugdom series and BioWare 's MDK2 proved successful. Several developers who found success with 3D platformers began experimenting with titles that, despite their cartoon art style, were aimed at adults. Examples include Rare 's Conker's Bad Fur Day , Crystal Dynamics 's Gex: Deep Cover Gecko and Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver , and Shiny Entertainment 's Messiah . In 1998, Sega produced

15933-421: The project to first-time video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto . Drawing inspiration from " Beauty and the Beast " and 1930s American media such as Popeye and King Kong , Miyamoto developed the characters and scenario and designed the game alongside chief engineer Gunpei Yokoi . It was the most complex arcade game at that point, using graphics for characterization, including it and cutscenes to illustrate

16074-409: The robot being defeated, Wallace is freed from his cell and Feathers activates a rocket pack to escape. However, upon reaching the zoo entrance, Feathers is confronted by the parent animals before being caged by the elephants and dropping his diamond, which is swiftly picked up by Gromit. Wallace then notes how Feathers won't be troubling them again in a hurry, with the penguin being back in his cell from

16215-475: The screen which was eventually found too hard to program, though a similar concept came later in the Popeye arcade game. Miyamoto then thought of using sloped platforms, barrels, and ladders. When he specified that the game would have multiple stages, the four-man programming team complained that he was essentially asking them to implement the game repeatedly. Nevertheless, they followed Miyamoto's design, creating

16356-594: The small startup company on a major order of 3,000 Radar Scope . Its poor reception in America filled a warehouse with 2,000 unsold Radar Scope machines, so Arakawa requested that the parent company president (and his father-in-law) Hiroshi Yamauchi send a conversion kit of new game software. Yamauchi polled the company's entire talent pool for fresh game design concepts to save the distressed startup. This yielded Shigeru Miyamoto 's debut as lead game designer of his Donkey Kong concept, and Yamauchi appointed head engineer Gunpei Yokoi as project supervisor with

16497-427: The stage, a heart appears between Mario and Pauline, but Donkey Kong grabs her and climbs higher, causing the heart to break. The narrative concludes when Mario reaches the end of the rivet stage. He and Pauline are reunited, and a short intermission plays. Nintendo of America was founded in 1980 with minor success at importing its parent's arcade cabinets from Japan. In early 1981, its president Minoru Arakawa bet

16638-441: The success of Donkey Kong , Nintendo began developing the Famicom, the hardware of which was largely based on the Donkey Kong arcade hardware, with the goal of matching the system's powerful sprite capabilities in a home system. Nintendo wanted the Famicom to match the Donkey Kong arcade hardware, so they took a Donkey Kong arcade cabinet to semiconductor chip manufacturer Ricoh for analysis, which led to Ricoh producing

16779-417: The taller Pauline uses two sprites, and the larger Donkey Kong uses six sprites. Hiroshi Yamauchi thought the game was going to sell well and phoned to inform Arakawa. Nintendo of America's distributors, Ron Judy and Al Stone, brought Arakawa to the lawyer Howard Lincoln to secure a trademark. The game was sent to Nintendo of America for testing. The sales manager disliked it for being too different from

16920-449: The template for countless video games released after. The game uses graphics and animation for characterization. Donkey Kong smirks upon Mario's demise. Pauline has a pink dress and long hair, and a speech balloon crying "HELP!". Mario, depicted in red overalls and a red cap, is an everyman character, a type common in Japan. Graphical limitations and the low pixel resolution of the small sprites prompted his design. A mustache implies

17061-423: The term being coined; the U.S. gaming press used "climbing game" for games with platforms and ladders. As the first platform game to feature jumping, Donkey Kong requires the player to jump between gaps and over obstacles or approaching enemies whilst Donkey Kong throws barrels at the player, setting the template for the future of the genre. With four unique stages, Donkey Kong was the most complex arcade game of

17202-408: The thought of a "stupid ape". Miyamoto had high hopes for his new project. He was not a programmer, so instead consulted technicians for concept feasibility. He wanted to make the characters different sizes, and have different movements and reactions. Yokoi thought Miyamoto's original design was too complex, though he had some difficult suggestions, such as using see-saws to catapult the hero across

17343-448: The time, and one of the first arcade games with multiple stages, following games such as 1980's Phoenix and 1981's Gorf and Scramble . In addition to the goal of saving Pauline , the player has a score. Points are awarded for the following: leaping over obstacles; destroying objects with a hammer power-up; collecting items such as hats, parasols, and purses; removing rivets from platforms; and completing each stage according to

17484-441: The time. Despite this, Yoshi's Story sold over a million copies in the US, and Mischief Makers rode high on the charts in the months following its release. The term 3D platformer usually refers to games with gameplay in three dimensions and polygonal 3D graphics. Games that have 3D gameplay but 2D graphics are usually included under the umbrella of isometric platformers , while those that have 3D graphics but gameplay on

17625-540: The top down perspective, Frogger (1981) as climbing games. In a December 1982 Creative Computing review of the Apple II game Beer Run , the reviewer used a different term: "I'm going to call this a ladder game, as in the 'ladder genre,' which includes Apple Panic and Donkey Kong ." That label was also used by Video Games Player magazine in 1983 when it named the Coleco port of Donkey Kong "Ladder Game of

17766-560: The trademark. When Universal threatened Nintendo, Howard Lincoln and Nintendo refused to cave. In preparation for the court battle, Universal agreed to allow Tiger to continue producing its King Kong game as long as they distinguished it from Donkey Kong . Universal sued Nintendo on June 29 and announced its license with Coleco. The company sent cease and desist letters to Nintendo's licensees, all of which agreed to pay royalties to Universal except Milton Bradley and Ralston Purina . Universal City Studios, Inc. v. Nintendo, Co., Ltd.

17907-447: The use of emulators for high scores they publish because they allow undetectable cheating. In 2020 Guinness World Records reversed its decision and reinstated Billy Mitchell's previous world records, based on new evidence including eyewitness reports and expert testimonials. There are other world record categories for Donkey Kong besides highest score. One of the most popular is the "No Hammer Challenge" where competitors try to get

18048-535: The verdict was upheld on July 15, 1986. Nintendo thanked John Kirby with the gift of a $ 30,000 sailboat named Donkey Kong and "exclusive worldwide rights to use the name for sailboats". Kirby , the protagonist of the Kirby series, was named in John Kirby's honor. The court battle also taught Nintendo they could compete with larger entertainment industry companies. After the release of Donkey Kong Jr. ,

18189-437: The video game industry internationally. The following year, Donkey Kong received a sequel, Donkey Kong Jr. and later Mario Bros. , a platformer with two-player cooperative play . It laid the groundwork for other two-player cooperative games such as Fairyland Story and Bubble Bobble . Beginning in 1982, transitional games emerged with non-scrolling levels spanning multiple screens. David Crane's Pitfall! for

18330-455: The visual flash of 3D with traditional 2D side scrolling gameplay. These games are often referred to as 2.5D. The first such game was Saturn launch title , Clockwork Knight (1994). The game featured levels and boss characters rendered in 3D, but retained 2D gameplay and used pre-rendered 2D sprites for regular characters, similar to Donkey Kong Country . Its sequel improved upon its design, featuring some 3D effects such as hopping between

18471-428: The way. These games are either presented from the side view, using two-dimensional movement, or in 3D with the camera placed either behind the main character or in isometric perspective . Typical platforming gameplay tends to be very dynamic and challenges a player's reflexes, timing, and dexterity with controls. The most common movement options in the genre are walking, running, jumping, attacking, and climbing. Jumping

18612-413: Was Floating Runner , developed by a Japanese company called Xing and released for PlayStation in early 1996, before the release of Super Mario 64 . Floating Runner uses D-pad controls and a behind-the-character camera perspective. In 1996, Nintendo released Super Mario 64 , which is a game that set the standard for 3D platformers. It let the player explore 3D environments with greater freedom than

18753-505: Was a primary way to attack. This was the first true 3D platform-action game with free-roaming environments, but it was never ported to another platform or released outside Japan, so it remains relatively unknown in the West. The following year, Exact released their follow-up to Geograph Seal . An early title for Sony's new PlayStation console, Jumping Flash! , released in April 1995, kept

18894-507: Was a subcontractor who had already been paid. Game Machine called it "simply a nuisance tactic" on the part of Ikegami. By late March 1981, Nintendo was also pursuing a license to make a game based on the Popeye comic strip. When they experienced technical issues, Nintendo took the opportunity to create new characters that could be marketed and used in later games. Miyamoto came up with many characters and plot concepts, but he settled on

19035-532: Was found in any previous game in the genre. With this in mind, Nintendo put an analog control stick on its Nintendo 64 controller, a feature that had not been seen since the Vectrex but which has since become standard. The analog stick provided the fine precision needed with a free perspective. In most 2D platformers, the player finished a level by following a path to a certain point, but in Super Mario 64 ,

19176-615: Was heard in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York by Judge Robert W. Sweet. Over seven days, Universal's counsel, the New York firm Townley & Updike, argued that the names King Kong and Donkey Kong were easily confused and that the plot of the game was an infringement on that of the films. Nintendo's counsel, John Kirby , countered that Universal had argued in

19317-440: Was programmed by Garry Kitchen . Kitchen was contracted to port the game through his brother Steve, who had connections to an executive at Coleco. He was given only three or four months to develop the port and worked without sleep for the last 72 hours before shipping. Kitchen received no assistance from Nintendo and minimal aid from Coleco, who only provided him with an arcade machine for temporary use. These factors combined with

19458-791: Was re-released as part of the Arcade Archives series for Nintendo Switch on June 14, 2018, and the NES version was re-released as one of the launch titles for Nintendo Switch Online on September 19. Donkey Kong was one of the most widely cloned video games in the early 1980s, along with Space Invaders (1978) and Pac-Man (1980). By 1983, Donkey Kong clones had become available on various different platforms. The Giant List of Classic Game Programmers lists 17 different Donkey Kong clones released for various home platforms. There were so many games with multiple ladder and platforms stages by 1983 that Electronic Games described Nintendo's own Popeye game as "yet another variation of

19599-468: Was taking too long. The game's success led to Arakawa expanding Nintendo of America. By October, Donkey Kong was selling 4,000 units a month, and by June 1982, Nintendo had sold 60,000 Donkey Kong machines in the United States, earning $ 180 million. Judy and Stone, who worked on straight commission, became millionaires. Arakawa used Nintendo's profits to buy 27 acres (11 ha) of land in Redmond in July 1982. Nintendo earned another $ 100 million on

19740-418: Was the first game to allow players to jump over obstacles and gaps. It is widely considered to be the first platformer. It introduced Mario under the name Jumpman. Donkey Kong was ported to many consoles and computers at the time, notably as the system-selling pack-in game for ColecoVision , and also a handheld version from Coleco in 1982. The game helped cement Nintendo's position as an important name in

19881-540: Was used in Steve Bloom's 1982 book Video Invaders and 1983 magazines Electronic Games (US)—which ran a cover feature called "The Player's Guide to Climbing Games"—and TV Gamer (UK). Bloom defined "climbing games" as titles where the player "must climb from the bottom of the screen to the top while avoiding and/or destroying the obstacles and foes you invariably meet along the way." Under this definition, he listed Space Panic (1980), Donkey Kong , and despite

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